Why the Hot Yoga Gunman Quoted American Psycho

Scott Paul Beierle had also been arrested before
By Neal Colgrass,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 3, 2018 1:40 PM CDT
Hot Yoga Gunman Had Been Arrested Before
This undated photo provided by Leon County Sheriff’s Office shows Scott Paul Beierle.   (Leon County Sheriff’s Office via AP)

The man who murdered two women in a Florida yoga studio Friday had been accused of grabbing and slapping women before, the Tallahassee Democrat reports. Scott Paul Beierle, 40—who also wounded five people in the Friday attack before killing himself—was arrested in 2012 for reportedly grabbing two women by the buttocks at Florida State University. One of the women said it had happened three times, but Beierle claimed he'd never intentionally touched them and might have bumped into them, per CBS News. In 2016 he was arrested again for apparently grabbing and slapping the buttocks of another woman by the pool of his apartment complex. Prosecutors dropped battery charges after both arrests.

He'd also been arrested in 2014 for allegedly trespassing in an FSU dining hall, which led to a trespass warning against him across the campus. Little more is known about the shooter—who apparently entered the studio pretending to be a customer and opened fire—but his LinkedIn page says he graduated from New York's Binghamton University in 2002, studied public administration and urban planning at FSU, and worked as a supply and logistics director with the US Army from 2008 to 2010. His Facebook page's About section says, "As hard as you try, you can not escape your destiny. You can run from it, but you can not hide from it." It also includes this quote from the serial-killer protagonist of American Psycho: "I just want to have a meaningful relationship with someone special." (The Pittsburgh synagogue shooting put the focus on this social media site.)

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